The pursuit of economic strength has stabilizing effects in the South China Sea

Are Vietnam and the Philippines trending more toward conflict or cooperation with China over disputed territories and resource claims in the South China Sea? This thesis investigates realist and liberal international relations theories applied to three states involved in South China Sea disputes. It reviews the history of South China Sea disputes between China, Vietnam, and the Philippines since 1988 and reviews the states' growing economic interconnectedness to determine whether they have trended toward armed conflict or if economic interdependence has led the states toward cooperation to manage their overlapping claims. This thesis concludes that China, Vietnam, and the Philippines have trended neither toward armed conflict nor cooperation to manage their South China Sea territory and resource disputes. Despite increasing tensions over the competition for territory and resources, the states have managed their disputes peacefully and have avoided armed conflict since 1988. Furthermore, despite increasing asymmetric economic interdependence between the smaller states and China correlating to the period of relative peace in the South China Sea, the states have rarely cooperated with one another to manage their disputes. Asymmetric economic interdependence between the smaller states and China, however, has contributed to the relative peace in the South China Sea.http://archive.org/details/thepursuitofecon1094550556Commander, United States NavyApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Acoustic Correlates of Information Structure.

This paper reports three studies aimed at addressing three questions about the acoustic correlates of information structure in English: (1) do speakers mark information structure prosodically, and, to the extent they do; (2) what are the acoustic features associated with different aspects of information structure; and (3) how well can listeners retrieve this information from the signal? The information structure of subject-verb-object sentences was manipulated via the questions preceding those sentences: elements in the target sentences were either focused (i.e., the answer to a wh-question) or given (i.e., mentioned in prior discourse); furthermore, focused elements had either an implicit or an explicit contrast set in the discourse; finally, either only the object was focused (narrow object focus) or the entire event was focused (wide focus). The results across all three experiments demonstrated that people reliably mark (1) focus location (subject, verb, or object) using greater intensity, longer duration, and higher mean and maximum F0, and (2) focus breadth, such that narrow object focus is marked with greater intensity, longer duration, and higher mean and maximum F0 on the object than wide focus. Furthermore, when participants are made aware of prosodic ambiguity present across different information structures, they reliably mark focus type, so that contrastively focused elements are produced with greater intensity, longer duration, and lower mean and maximum F0 than noncontrastively focused elements. In addition to having important theoretical consequences for accounts of semantics and prosody, these experiments demonstrate that linear residualisation successfully removes individual differences in people's productions thereby revealing cross-speaker generalisations. Furthermore, discriminant modelling allows us to objectively determine the acoustic features that underlie meaning differences

Global 30–240 keV proton precipitation in the 17–18 April 2002 geomagnetic storms: 1. Patterns

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/95215/1/jgra18503.pd

The Paradoxical Effects of Chronic Intra-Amniotic Ureaplasma parvum Exposure on Ovine Fetal Brain Development

Chorioamnionitis is associated with adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in preterm infants. Ureaplasma spp. are the microorganisms most frequently isolated from the amniotic fluid of women diagnosed with chorioamnionitis. However, controversy remains concerning the role of Ureaplasma spp. in the pathogenesis of neonatal brain injury. We hypothesize that reexposure to an inflammatory trigger during the perinatal period might be responsible for the variation in brain outcomes of preterms following Ureaplasma driven chorioamnionitis. To investigate these clinical scenarios, we performed a detailed multimodal study in which ovine neurodevelopmental outcomes were assessed following chronic intra-amniotic Ureaplasma parvum (UP) infection either alone or combined with subsequent lipopolysaccharide (LPS) exposure. We show that chronic intra-amniotic UP exposure during the second trimester provoked a decrease in astrocytes, increased oligodendrocyte numbers, and elevated 5-methylcytosine levels. In contrast, short-term LPS exposure before preterm birth induced increased microglial activation, myelin loss, elevation of 5- hydroxymethylcytosine levels, and lipid profile changes. These LPS-induced changes were prevented by chronic preexposure to UP (preconditioning). These data indicate that chronic UP exposure has dual effects on preterm brain development in utero. Onthe one hand, prolonged UP exposure causes detrimental cerebral changes that may predispose to adverse postnatal clinical outcomes. On the other, chronic intra-amniotic UP exposure preconditions the brain against a second inflammatory hit. This study demonstrates that microbial interactions and the timing and duration of the inflammatory insults determine the effects on the fetal brain. Therefore, this study helps to understand the complex and diverse postnatal neurological outcomes following UP driven chorioamnionitis. (C) 2017 S. Karger AG, Base